Feast of the Conversion Of St. Paul 2000

[Fr.Paul Weinberger]

Feast of the Conversion Of St. Paul

Father Paul Weinberger
Saint William the Confessor Catholic Church
Greenville, Texas
January 25, 2009

Jesus appeared to the eleven and said to them, “Go into the whole world and proclaim the Gospel to every creature; whoever believes and is Baptized will be saved. Whoever does not believe will be condemned.”

In the Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit

Amen

Just before you get to Waco, Texas, there is a stop called West and just near West is where my dad’s family settled in the mid 1800s, when they came over from Bavaria. I went down there years ago with my dad and we stopped in for breakfast at a bakery and there on the wall was a painting called, “The Great Crush”. Someone had noticed that he railroad was decommissioning two locomotives and someone had the bright idea of taking them and ramming them into each other. I guess this is what they did before they had tractor pulls or things like that.

Anyway, they were going to put them on the same track facing each other, back them up miles apart and then get them going toward one another and the engineers would bail. The cars were painted in rich vibrant colors. Word of mouth turned out a huge number of people. This is a small area and there was really nothing going on there except to watch the cattle and crops grow, but people wanted to see this great crush. When the day came people were selling things, buying things, and eating things as is typical during entertainment. They backed the steam engines up miles apart, built a fire in the firebox, which heated the water to make the steam for the engine to run on. Slowly the trains took off and gained speed, heading to that mid-point where it was calculated they would crash into each other.

The account of that day features some very graphic testimony because when the two locomotives came together with such violence and power a cascade of fire and boiling steam and steel descended upon the people because they were drawn closer and closer to this train wreck even though common sense would tell you to get away. Many people were killed, many were maimed, and others were wounded and some were just scared to death. But it as a train wreck that everyone could see coming.

Moving on…what I am about to say, I am absolutely dead serious. In that Tabernacle over there where the candles are is the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus is personally present in this Church in the Most Blessed Sacrament. When I get up and speak into this microphone and I have an axe to grind then He is going to, well, deal with me and it won’t be nice. So, what I am telling you right now is if you believe that what I am about to say is a political axe to grind then this is not a threat and I would welcome you to reconsider it, but if you don’t reconsider it then I would urge you to find another pastor. If you can’t trust your pastor to be honest and direct with you then you need to find another pastor. Everyone has a pastor; everyone has to have a pastor.

Last week was a memorial week and I mentioned some of those highlights last Sunday. We had the Martin Luther Kind Day, the Inauguration of President Obama and also Roe V Wade on Thursday, the 22nd. These are historic moments in the life of our country. The day after Roe V Wade, President Obama fulfilled a campaign promise and rescinded the Mexico City Policy. You may recall that weeks before the election I told you what the Mexico City Policy is. In 1982 it was signed by President Regan and is called the Mexico City policy because Mexico City is where it was signed. The policy states that no taxpayer money will be crossing American borders to go to other countries to promote or perform abortion. President Regan had the law signed to restrict American dollars crossing our borders and going into foreign countries.

That was the law of this land until President Clinton took over. The same day that he took over he signed an act rescinding the Mexico City Policy. For eight years our American dollars went to foreign countries to perform abortions. When George Bush became President he reinstated the Mexico City Policy and that is how it has been the last eight years until last Friday. Not even a week had gone by since his Inauguration and he fulfilled a campaign promise he made to a big lobbying group called Planned Parenthood International. They are the largest providers of abortions in the world…the Auschwitz of business.

Yesterday I turned on the am radio looking for Neal Sperry, the Dirt Doctor. Instead I found Dr. Dean Adele. I thought he only came on at night and I don’t recommend that you listen to him; he has very many ideas that are at odds with the Catholic Church’s teachings. He makes fun of the Catholic Church on a regular basis. Instead of the Dirt Doctor I got Dean Adele and he was right in the middle of mentioning the Mexico City Policy. He said that he lamented how over the last eight years this policy had been reinstated.

Dr. Dean Adele had the figures from Planned Parenthood International. They claim that because of that law, thirty-six million abortions around the world were not performed because that law was enacted. He was lamenting the fact that those thirty-six million children had not been killed. Now, please tell me how that man cannot slit his throat shaving in the morning; what a terrible individual he must be to say something like that. There were thirty-six million children saved by us not using the force of the American dollar in foreign countries. May God have mercy on his soul. And so it begins, the train wreck! Abortion continues as people run toward this train wreck.

Last week on the anniversary of the day Roe V Wade was signed into law on January 22, 1973, I went to the abortion clinic. A couple drove up and they were not a couple of teens driven by hormones but a couple from Mexico, who live here. They spoke only Spanish, but they are thirty years old and are married, have two children, and love each other. From what I could tell by their clothes and car they were doing pretty well for themselves. I spoke to them for about twenty-five minutes and then after that I turned to a lady from my previous Parish, Maria, who’d brought with her, her first grandson, Aaron, who is six months old. I thought, “Good, let a woman talk to a woman with a baby in her arms.” So for about twenty-five minutes she also spoke to them but in Spanish.

As she was speaking to them Jesús drove by in a truck. Now, this is a produce truck that he drives and he makes a delivery right around the corner. I know Jesús from my previous Parish also. Every time he drives by we wave at each other but this time he parked the truck and came to me and shook my hand. I asked him if he would also talk to the couple. He did, and did even more. He spoke to them about thirty minutes. He’d taken a class at my previous Parish, Blessed Sacrament, which filled him in on the risks on the woman in every abortion and also what happens to the child. He gave them his cell phone number and invited them to visit he and his wife, Maria, in their home. He’d rolled out the red carpet. After about an hour to an hour and a half of talking to this couple they drove away; thanks be to God!

About an hour later they drove back up and told me that they were going inside. I looked them square in the eye and said, “You know, we have spent all this time speaking to you and trying to help you.” Now, these are good Catholics and not those groping in the dark Catholics. They can make the Sign of the Cross and say all their prayers; they are Church-going stable Catholics, right? But they are going to have the abortion. I said, “You two have received much today, much instruction, and Jesus says that those to whom much has been given, much will be required.” I took my shoes off, bent down and picked them up and hit the soles together, dust falling from the soles. I said to them that Jesus says in the Gospel, “Into whatever place you go and they do not listen to you, kick the dust from the soles of your sandals in testimony against them.” I told them that when they die, and everyone dies…even bishops die, presidents die, priests die, kings die, and even laypeople die, that they will go before God and this dust will be in testimony against them, and I walked away thoroughly disgusted.

I have been very privileged and grew up in Catholic schools from grades 1-12. I had sisters, priests, and lay people saying to me, “Paul Weinberger, are you supposed to be doing that? Paul Weinberger aren’t you supposed to be over there. Paul Weinberger is that supposed to be in your nose?” I had people saying this kind of thing to me all the time. Neighbors, teachers, priests, and everyone would want to talk to my father about me. Thanks be to God they did, but you know what? Even though that was the case I still managed to find plenty of trouble to get into. Things are not that way and not put together today as they were forty-nine years ago. I will be fifty in May. In fact, if we consider just a couple of people in their late teens or early 20s going up to the abortion clinic, we know that there will probably be no one there to ask them to stop and reconsider what they are doing. I hear the line all the time, “Well, it is her body and her decision.” How gutless for a man to say that. If she’d called him in the morning and told him she decided to commit suicide that day, he would tackle her and call 911, restraining her until an ambulance came. He would be right in doing so. The fact is that we are about to see worse things on the horizon.

Today is the Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul. That First Reading is only one of two readings in the Acts of the Apostles, chapter nine, which also has St. Paul telling us about his past, how he was very intelligent. Gamaliel is considered by Rabbis today to have been the most expert Rabbi of all time. Gamaliel instructed Saul, whom we know as St. Paul today. He had a good upbringing and a good life as well as being sincere and he was sincerely wrong. President Obama has gone to the Ivy League Schools and is a very intelligent man. I consider him to be very sincere and in his current course he is sincerely wrong when it comes to the unborn. Money going across these borders at a time of economic crisis at home…I am sorry bit it does not compute, not even in good times.

Last week I heard about the head religious leader in Iran. The Chief of Religion in Iran made the announcement last week that women as young as ten years old could now be legally married. We call them girls and they can think about getting married but it is going to be at least what, thirty years before we allow them to be married? Right! Ten years old, how barbaric are those Iranians?

What I have here are three post cards that you will receive next week. It is part of a campaign to stop FOCA. From Labor Day until the national elections you saw written in our bulletins and you heard me speak about what President Elect Obama said on July 17, 2007, and that was that the first thing he would do would be to sign FOCA. One of the many nefarious elements of FOCA is that the age of abortion is now lowered to women as young as twelve. We call them girls. Don’t worry parents; your girls won’t have to bother you asking for an abortion because they won’t need your permission. They can go to the nice teacher or nice counselor as well as the nice abortion clinic and they can have the abortion. Don’t worry; your checking account won’t be affected because American taxpayer money is going to fund this. It is all a business and this is the worst blood stained business. It is a train wreck on the horizon. The incredible pressure that the President is under is very similar to the pressure that Saul was under.

As you leave the Church today, on this side you see a picture of one of Saul’s victims, St. Stephen, who was the first martyr of Saul of Tarsus. He was breathing murderous threats and turning men and women over to be killed. He admits it freely. Today is the Conversion of St. Paul and he never went back to that former way of life; instead he used his incredible power and force of personality to spread the Gospel. This is what we need to pray for in the case of President Obama because in no way can FOCA have anything to do with freedom or choice.

Do you recall what met the Pope when he came to Washington D.C. last April? A year hasn’t even gone by. A big banner there is Washington over the door of the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception read, “Christ our Hope.” The two slogans of President Obama during his campaigns were hope and change. Christ our hope... there is no hope without Christ and there is no hope in the Freedom of Choice Act. If you can find it I demand you point it out to me. There is no hope in FOCA. Change? Oh yes, FOCA is a change, change for the worse.

Over eight years not sending money overseas, that is thirty-six million abortions that could have taken place. Just wait, in those eight years Planned Parenthood has gotten worse at performing abortions and they can do them quicker and more can be handled.

I have two apologies to you; the first apology is that over the last five years I have spoken about this at length but have never sufficiently mentioned that there are men and women, who have been hurt by abortion speaking out about how they were hurt. Dr. Alveta King, Dr. Martin Luther King’s niece has had two abortions and she goes around the world talking about how this is not part of Dr. King’s dream in his “I Have A Dream” speech.

Last Thursday I heard a woman on the radio who was talking about a movie she just made. She made a movie thirty minutes long called “Twenty-Two Weeks.” That is how old her son was when she aborted him. One line stuck with me from that interview. She said that there isn’t an hour that goes by since that day when she doesn’t think of her son. I don’t want that to happen to you or your daughters, sons, grand children or anyone in the family. But, this is a train wreck folks and just as the “Great Crush”, it will cause great violence and bring many to death.

The other apology I have is the fact that in our diocese for the last ten or fifteen years we have had what is called “Rachael’s Vineyard.”, and it is an excellent retreat for men and women who have had some part in abortion. It is a way of working through all of that to this, to conversion. From now on, I am sorry but that information is going to be in our bulletin weekly. I have been negligent in getting that part across to you and for this, I apologize.

The last thing I will say about FOCA, one element that I mentioned at the Spanish Mass last night, is that doctors will now perform abortions, nurses will now perform abortions, and others will now do the same. Let us think about this for a minute. If you have “this” (money) you are going to get a doctor and if you don’t have “this” you are going to get a nurse. The majority of people are going to get “other” Welcome to progress and the train wreck, which is FOCA. The reason I say this is not for a political statement, and again, if you believe I am being political and that I have a political axe to grind, you have no other choice but to find another pastor.

If you read the opening lines of this Gospel, Jesus is very clear. Whoever believes is saved and whoever does not believe will be condemned. An overwhelming majority of Catholics in this country elected a pro-abortion president and it is up to Catholics to do something about it. This is the truth. The bishops of the country have spoken about this and last week in a parish in this country, a very prominent Catholic politician, whose name, party status, and state I will not reveal, went to Mass, and he is an open advocate of abortion and everyone knows it, he went to Communion and after he went the entire congregation stood up and what do they do…they clapped! These are the people who are going to be there for your sons and daughters. This is a train wreck, which no other train wreck can match and we must do something.

We have great possibility; here was a man, St Paul, who was very intelligent and highly placed and working against the Church. Jesus says to Him, “Why are you persecuting me?” Anyone who takes the life of a little child, Jesus says they will have to answer to Him. In the Gospel He says, “Welcome the little children to come unto me.” If you see it another way you are deluding yourself in the extreme. But wait! Death comes for all of us and we will not sneak in a back door.

Jesus appeared to the eleven and said to them, “Go into the whole world and proclaim the Gospel to every creature; whoever believes and is Baptized will be saved. Whoever does not believe will be condemned.”

In the Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit

Amen